Education majors must be prepared to begin their Honors Capstone early, since they will be busy with student teaching during senior year. Pleaes reach out to your liaison ASAP to determine exact timing.

Eligibility Requirements

Students not already in the Honors College at the start of their junior year (with 4 semesters remaining) must have a 3.50 cumulative GPA or higher to be eligible to begin an Honors capstone project (hereafter referred to “project”) as a non-Honors student.
Students must have a 3.25 in their major at the time they register and they must maintain this 3.25 GPA while working on their Honors project. The Honors project advisor will verify that each student's GPA meets these requirements before allowing them to register for EDUC 499 (A, B, C) each of three semesters. If a student's GPA falls below 3.25, his/her committee will review the student's progress on the project and reserves the right to terminate the project process at that point.

Support

Honors Project Advisor: Each student will choose an Honors project advisor to support him/her as they start the Honors capstone project.
Honors Liaisons: Each department in the College of Education has its own Honors Liaison. This individual supports the student, Honors project advisor and supports collaboration and communication between the College of Education and the Honors College.

EDUC 499 A, B, & C Guidelines

The following guidelines address the expectations for completing the Honors project in the College of Education. A combination of these courses, equaling six credit hours, must be completed before graduation. Honors students must register for each of the following courses.

EDUC 499A (suggested 3 credits)

Designate a project advisor immediately. If Honor students do not already have a potential advisor in mind, contact the Honors faculty liaison for the department.
In consultation with the Honors student’s project advisor, select two more members of the committee who serve as readers and resources.
Meet with the project advisor to discuss the project (topic, outline, and suggested bibliography) within the first 3 weeks of the semester.
Submit the draft outline to the committee by the 8th week of the semester.
Depending on the project, complete and submit an IRB application and a draft of chapters 1 and 2 by the conclusion of the semester.
During the final weeks of the semester meet with each committee member to discuss their feedback on what was submitted.
The project advisor may determine a regular meeting schedule to monitor progress.

EDUC 499B (suggested 2 credits)

Meet with the project advisor and committee within the first week of the semester to review the project outline.
If applicable, draft chapters three, four, and five by the end of the semester.
The project advisor may determine a regular meeting schedule to monitor progress.

EDUC 499C (suggested 1 credit)

Conduct a joint meeting of the committee to review their readings of the project thus far.
During weeks 7 and 8 discuss final drafts of the project with the project advisor and each member of the committee.
The final version of the project must be submitted to the committee 14 days prior to the deadline for submission to the Honors College (see the Honors College Canvas page for information).
Unsatisfactory progress at any time may result in the project advisor's termination of the project. Late work will be reflected in the course grade assignment.

Composition of Committees

The EDUC 499A students must meet with the Honors project advisor prior to registration and again no later than the first week of class to define their topic and establish a committee.
Serving on an Honors project committee requires a commitment of at least three semesters. We encourage students to consult with faculty, instructors or community members who have relevant expertise as readers for their project.
Honors project committees consist of three members. No more than one member may be from outside the university. The Honors project advisor should be a full time faculty member who can assist with all six credit hours.
The Honors liaison from the department will serve as a resource in helping students select faculty members with expertise appropriate to the project topic. It is particularly important that the project advisor have methodological and substantive expertise that will allow the student to successfully complete his/her research. It is acceptable (and, in fact, often helpful) if one member of the committee does not have expertise in the subject and is able to view the material as an "outsider."
When Honors students and project advisors initiate the project committee member selection process, they are responsible for notifying the appropriate Honors liaison. The Honors liaison will keep a record of project assignments in order to provide the project committee members updated information on Honors College policies and to monitor project committee members' obligations and opportunities to serve. The liaison will notify the Honors College when a project advisor is identified.

Checkpoints

Any incomplete received for one phase of the Honors project course series (EDUC 499 A, B, C) must be completed by the time class begins for the next phase or the student will not be allowed to continue.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, students will not be allowed to take the A and B phase of the colloquium simultaneously.
EDUC 499 grades will be assigned by the project advisor in consultation with the committee.

How to Enroll in EDUC 499 A, B, & C

The Honors project advisor will send an email to Racheal Propst at propstrm@jmu.edu with the following information:

Credit Hour
Class cap (will this be for one student or several)
Student Name(s)
Student ID number(s)
Time or TBA of course
Day or TBA of course
Instructor
Mode; ie in-person, online etc.
Any notes they may want in the course schedule

Overlap between the Project and Other Classwork

Students may not turn in, for credit in other classes, portions of the project that are substantially unaltered.
Students may, with the permission of their project advisor and the professor teaching the course in question, turn in for course credit material that is related to the project but differs substantially from the material contained in the project. For example, a senior seminar student may do a paper on the same general topic as their Honors project, but must undertake a substantially different literature review (with a different focus than the project), develop new hypotheses, and conduct new data analysis.

General Research Guidelines

Because the purpose of the literature review is to portray the state of research on the topic, it will consist primarily of peer-reviewed sources. Magazines, newspapers, and books written by non-academics are not considered academic sources. A dataset is not an academic source, in that it contains no theory or analysis. Datasets must be cited in the references according to the preferences of their copyright holders.
Students should know the identity and qualifications of all persons cited in their project. Further, persons cited in the project should possess the appropriate qualifications for whatever claim they are making. While using the internet is an acceptable strategy for conducting research, students must adhere to the same rules for other sources when using the internet. This means that websites hosted by unknown individuals, such as Wikipedia, will not be cited, or used, in a project.
It is not appropriate to use the works of one author to summarize the work of another author. Rather than relying on Gordon Ziniewicz's characterization of John Dewey's research, for example, the student should read Dewey and cite the original work. Project chairs may consider exceptions if the work is obscure and unavailable, not in English, or otherwise unobtainable by the student.

Grammar and Style

All work must be edited before being submitted to the student's project committee.
Unless otherwise specified by the student's committee, the citation style in the project must conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.